Meditation can boost the volume and density of the hippocampus, a memory-enhancing brain region in the middle of the skull.
Working memory, or the ability to hold and manage information in your head, is enhanced by meditation.
Meditation reduces the size of the amygdala, the brain's fight-or-flight area, making people feel less anxious and more equipped to deal with life's obstacles.
Learn why you want to start meditating
You must be clear on the reasons why you want to start meditating in order to give yourself the required push to get started with your practice.
The more compelling your "why," the more likely you are to take the plunge and try meditation.
The following are some examples of poor motivations to begin meditating:
- Well, everyone else seems to be doing it, so I figured I'd join in.
- It's what my wife wants.
- I enjoy Healthgyan's blog, and she recommended that I meditate, so I will.
On the other side, these are excellent reasons to begin meditating:
- At work, I'm distracted, and my productivity is suffering as a result. I'm going to start meditating in order to boost my capacity to concentrate and focus.
- I have trouble sleeping at night. I'm going to attempt meditation to see if it can help me sleep better.
- My thoughts are always racing at a million miles per hour in my head. To try to calm my mind chatter, I'm going to start meditating.
Start Small. Try Mini-Meditations
For a long period, I meditated every day. Then I came to a halt. When things got stressful at work, I made the mistake of stopping meditation. I'd wanted to start meditating again for a long time but couldn't bring myself to do it.
Then, at the start of 2015, I made it one of my New Year's resolutions to reintroduce meditation into my life. However, the first week of January passed, followed by the second and third, and I was still not meditating.
Then, in the fourth week of January, I became frustrated with myself and my inability to form a meditation practice. I was eating breakfast when I thought to myself,
"That is all there is to it. I'm going to close my eyes and meditate for
30 seconds right here where I'm sitting once I finish eating breakfast."
That is exactly what I did. So I told myself that's what I was going to do starting that day. I told my sister the same day that I had started meditating for 30 seconds every day, and she looked at me like I was crazy. What's more, guess what? It was successful. It inspired me to re-start meditating.
After a few days of meditating for 30 seconds, I increased my meditation period to one minute. Then I upped it to two minutes, three minutes, and finally four minutes. I continued to increase my meditation time by one minute at a time until I reached ten minutes.
Tie Your Meditation to a Trigger
You can't just say, "I'm going to start meditating," and expect to follow through because you won't.
You must plan meditation in order to make it a habit. Even better, connect it to something you're already doing.
As you can see from the previous paragraph, finishing breakfast served as a meditation trigger for me.
Breakfast is something I eat on a daily basis. And as soon as I complete my meal, I know it's time for meditation, which I do.
Set Up Your Environment To Help You
Initially, I meditated at the table where I take my meals, but I eventually decided to roll out a yoga mat on the living room rug and begin meditating there. I lay out the yoga mat for the next day every night. This accomplishes two goals for me:
- In the morning, I walk past the yoga mat on my way to the breakfast table. This reinforces my decision to meditate immediately after eating.
- I don't have to get up and look for my yoga mat once I've finished eating breakfast because it's already spread out where it should be.
This means I know when I'm going to meditate, where I'm going to meditate, and everything is ready for me; all I have to do now is get up from the table, walk a few feet to the yoga mat, and sit down. My surroundings are designed to assist me.
Choose a Meditation Method
Assume you, too, decide to meditate straight after breakfast on a yoga mat in your living room. You sit on the yoga mat and are ready to begin as soon as you finish your breakfast. What now? To begin, you must decide how you will meditate ahead of time.
There are plenty of meditation techniques to choose from, fortunately. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
- Count your breaths as you take them. Make an effort not to think about anything else.
- With the help of guided meditation, you may follow along. Choose one from Amazon or go to YouTube to get a free guided meditation.
- Try visualizing it. Close your eyes and visualize a door opening in front of you. When you open the entrance, you are greeted by a lovely garden.
- What do you think you see? Is it surrounded by fruit trees? Is there a pond in your backyard? What do you think you hear? Is there chirping from the birds? Can you hear the leaves rustling in the breeze? In your imagination, create the most beautiful and serene garden you can and stay there for the duration of your meditation.
- Chant a mantra, such as the well-known "Om Mani Padma Hum," the compassion Buddha Chenrezi's mantra.
As you can see, there are a variety of meditation techniques to select from. You can try as many as you want until you discover one you like.
Make Meditation Fun
Let's face it, if you get bored with something, it's only a matter of time until you quit doing it. As a result, make your meditation time as enjoyable as possible. Here are some ideas for making your meditation sessions more enjoyable and ceremonial:
- Lighting a candle with a scent you enjoy is a great way to start. Candles from an old factory are a popular choice.
- Get some incense and light it.
- Play some relaxing music or listen to nature sounds.
- Singing bowls are employed as a signal to begin and end periods of silent meditation in some Buddhist practices.
- Invest in a Tibetan Singing Bowl and use it to signify the start and end of each of your meditation sessions.
You don't need any props to meditate, in fact. However, if candles, music, or other items will assist to make your meditation practice more enjoyable, go ahead and utilize them.
Find a Way to Hold Yourself Accountable
Being held accountable is one of the keys to habit success. Find a means to generate a negative consequence if you don't follow through if you want to succeed in developing a meditation habit.
Starting a habit with someone else is a typical form of accountability. If you don't follow through, you'll lose credibility with that person.
Do you know anyone else who wants to start meditating as well? If that's the case, make a deal to write each other an email every day after you've meditated. You'll be able to hold each other accountable in this manner.
Do It Every Day
Make it a habit to meditate every day if you want your meditation habit to stick. Andy Warhol once said, "I once said, "I once said, "I once said, "I
“Either once a day or every day,” says the narrator. It's great to do something once, and it's much more amazing to do it every day. But if you do it more than twice or virtually every day, it's no longer good.”
You may avoid having the following conversation in your thoughts every day if you meditate every day:
- “Should I do some meditation today?” ... I'm not sure... Today I have a lot on my plate. I'm not going to meditate today. I'll take care of it tomorrow.”
- “I meditated for three days in a row, so I'm going to take today off.”
- “Today, I'm not in the mood to meditate. I'm just not in the mood.”
- Make meditation a daily habit to avoid mental arguments.
Track Your Progress
Keep track of your progress to ensure that you stick to your new meditation habit. Perform the following actions:
- Every day you meditate, put an Om sticker on your wall calendar.
- Keep a journal of your meditations.
- Use an app to keep track of your progress toward achieving your objectives. Coach. me, for example, is a good place to start.
Give Yourself a Reward
Every habit can be split down into three components, as I describe in my piece "Eight Ways to Build New Habits and Make Them Stick."
- The cue: In our situation, the cue is the event that prompts us to begin meditating (in my case, finishing breakfast).
- A pattern: The regimen here is your meditation practice.
- Reward yourself once you've finished meditating.
Meditation is a prize in and of itself for me. When I meditate, I feel calm and at peace, and it provides me a boost in my mood that I can keep with me throughout the day. However, I recognize that this is due to the fact that I've been meditating for several months.
To convert meditating into a habit that you'll stick to, you'll probably want to give yourself a reward each time you meditate while you're first starting out. Here are three suggestions for self-rewarding:
- Have a piece of dark chocolate after each meditation session (with sea salt, if you can get it).
- Switch from nature sounds to your own after you've finished meditating. Play your favorite song and dance to it.
- Pour yourself a cup of flavored coffee.
You can reward yourself in an unlimited variety of ways for meditating. Make an effort to be inventive.
Conclusion
From personal experience, I can tell you that meditating is one of the most beneficial habits you can develop.
Apply the guidelines I've provided above to make the meditation habit stay. Create the habit of meditation to live your best life.